Smart Chips and building blocks can help make collaboration seamless by automating tasks you frequently do in Google Workspace products like Docs, Sheets, and Slides.

Building Blocks are pre-formatted elements that can be inserted into Google Docs and used to automatically create meeting notes, calendar event links, email drafts, and project assets. Users can also create custom building blocks to automatically add frequently used text like bios and signatures. 

Smart Chips are mini information cards that can be used to enhance Docs with collaborator tags, dates, files, locations, and placeholders.

Smart Chips don't just hold single pieces of data, they can contain connected bits of data about a person, place, or other element that can be recalled and utilized within your files (Docs, Sheets, Slides, etc.)

Smart Chip Types

A list of different types of Smart Chips

People chips can contain names and emails but also position titles, departments, office numbers, etc.

File chips can contain format type, URL, creation time, last modified by and time, as well as owner data.

Event chips hold all the data associated with your created event including a summary, date, time, location, calendar links, Organizer, and attendee data.

Place Chips contain place names, addresses, locations, and map data.

Dropdowns can be modified to use unique items and conditional statements for specific criteria. 

Other Chips Depending on the Google Workspace File type you are using with Smart Chips, you can also insert, YouTube Videos, Finance Data, a Star-Rating System, and Emojis.

How to Insert Building Blocks and Smart Chips

Open your Google Doc or Workspace products, click on Insert, then Smart chips, and select the type of smart chip you want to use.
How to insert Smart Chips

Type in your document @ followed by a person’s name, or the name of a file, calendar event, or smart chip (date, timer, place, etc).

How to insert Smart Chips directly from Doc body.

Using Building Blocks and Smart Chips

Using Building Blocks to add Meeting Notes will allow you to keep all your meeting details in a central location. Collaborators can access the discussion, decisions, and action items, promoting transparency and ensuring everyone stays on the same page throughout the project.

Inserting the Meeting Notes building block in your documents creates a custom notes template that can be attached to Google Calendar events and shared with collaborators.


For more information on sharing and attaching meeting notes to a Google Calendar event, see the Google Help Center article Add Meeting Notes to Google Calendar Events.

GIF showing how to insert people tags.

GIF showing how to insert place tags in Docs.

GIF showing how to insert customized Building Blocks.

Creating a Calendar Event with Building Blocks

Draft Calendar events in Google Docs by inserting the @calendar event draft building block. After adding an event title, start and end times, location, descriptions, and inserting guests using the People smart chip (@name), you can preview and create your calendar event by sending the event draft to Calendar.
Inserting a Calendar event draft from the tool bar menu,

Drafting an Email with Building Blocks and Smart Chips

You can create an email in Google Docs that can be previewed and sent through your Gmail by typing @email  in your document or inserting the Email draft building block from the toolbar menu by clicking on Insert,  You can also use Smart Chips to insert files as attachments.

Inserting an email draft from the toolbar menu,

Custom Building Blocks 

  1. Click on Insert, Building blocks, then select Custom building blocks.
    Inserting a custom building block from the tool bar menu.,

  2. Click the plus symbol next to New custom building block.
    Create a new custom building block by clicking the plus symbol

  3. Highlight the text you want to save as a building block, then click Save.
    Highlighting text in Docs to create a custom Building Block.

  4. Next, enter a name and a description for your building block and click Create.
    Saving text as a custom building block.

  5. After your building block is saved, click Open saved block to view your block in its newly created Google doc, or click got it to close the window.
    Confirmation dialog stating that a building block has been created.

  6. Type @ followed by your building block name to insert it in your file.
    Inserting a custom Building Block Bio.

Extracting Data from Smart Chips 

GIF showing how to use Smart Chips to Extract Emails in a Sheet.

Most Smart Chips allow for the extraction of specific pieces of data that are connected to the Chip. For files, this can include the file name, type, links, last modified by and time, as well as the owner of the file. This data can be extracted to a Google Sheet by

  1. Right-clicking on the chip and selecting Data Extraction.
    Right-clicking on a chip to extract data.

  2. Select the data you want to extract and where to extract it to in the Sheet and click Extract.
    Selecting data and extracting it into a Sheet.

    For more information on how to use Smart Chips in Sheets, see the Google Docs Help Center article, Insert Smart Chips in Your Google Sheets.

Converting Data to Smart Chips 

If you have data that you want to convert to Smart Chips like email lists, follow these steps.

  1.  Highlight and right-click on the data you want to convert, select Smart chips then Convert to people chip.

    Converting Data to a People Smart Chip.

Inserting YouTube links in your Docs or Sheet and replacing them with Smart Chips will allow users to preview and watch your videos from within your document.

  1. Copy and paste the YouTube link into your Doc, Sheet, or Slide, and click tab to replace the URL with a Chip.
    Replacing YouTube URLs with Smart Chips.

  2. Or hover over the link and click the option to replace the URL with a Chip.
    Clicking on Chip to convert link to a Smart Chip.

 For more information, see Google’s Help Center article Insert Smart Chips & Building Blocks in your Google Doc.